ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to map a number of tropes of contemporary Western physical
theatre practices. We have used this analytical term before (in Chapter 2) and for our
purposes it is worth reiterating that ‘trope’ may be recognised as a way of identifying
regularly repeated and returned to qualities of form, so that it is possible to propose
some fluid typologies that seem to be present among and between different bodies of
work. ‘Trope’ seems to us to be looser than ‘category’ and far more open than ‘definition’.
